THE only student protest I ever joined was a Rock Against Racism march through Manchester in 1978.
I harboured some principled opposition to the rise of the National Front, sure. But what translated those feelings into direct action was the enticement of a free gig by the Buzzcocks at journey’s end in Alexandra Park, Moss Side.
My student days were spent in that period between the heady revolutionary spirit of the Sixties, when bolshie students wanted nothing less than to smash the old establishment and start afresh, and Thatcherism, which squeezed the fight out of the students just as surely as it brought the trade unions to their knees.
In my day, the image of the sitcom Citizen Smith rang true. The student activist seemed a vaguely Quixotic figure, tilting at windmills, fighting causes that were usually not his to fight.
And those who did buck the system bucked it at the system’s expense. There were grants for almost all, tuition fees paid without question by the taxpayer.
How different from the lot of today’s student. I couldn’t blame any of them for becoming hotheads. The sit-ins and demonstrations about tuition fees are more than just a grievance about money. The hideous price of one day attempting to put a roof over their heads will set these young people back much more than the £9,000 a year tuition fees to which they are currently objecting.
No, this uprising is about fairness and about principle: the principle that one generation which had free university education and thus equality of opportunity, should not deprive the next generation of those same things.
How refreshing also to see demonstrations at Topshop and the like. The campaigners’ case is that Topshop boss Sir Philip Green’s wife Tina – the direct owner of parent company Arcadia – is offically a resident of Monaco, allowing her to take a tax-free £1.2bn dividend in 2005. Sir Philip insists his wife is not a tax exile, and that he is a UK taxpayer.
Whatever the detail, this is a demonstration about wanting a fairer society, after years of acquiescing to bankers’ bonuses, hedge fund fortune hunters and spiralling executive pay.
Does all this herald the dawn of a new age of idealism? I hope so, because idealism has been pushed to the edges of the political landscape since Margaret Thatcher told us that there was no such thing as society.
We have had sundry demos by the green lobby, a slew of protests about globalisation, even marches in favour of foxhunting, but since the Poll Tax riots of 1990, how many mass protests have we seen about making this a fairer nation?
The era of New Labour was no less pragmatic than Thatcherism, with pale pink Tories cravenly indulging big business and courting the bankers who would destroy the economy.
And so in 2008, after a decade of Labour government the Institute for Fiscal Studies concluded that Britain was a more unequal nation than when the Tories were in power.
That news didn’t provoke nearly enough anger. Perhaps we were too busy dealing with an almighty recession precipitated by the greed and folly of those bankers. But now the protests about tuition fees, the harassing of tycoons over their imaginative tax arrangements are all about striving for a fairer society.
After 30 years voting Labour, I voted Lib Dem at the General Election. There was no idealism in that decision, just a choice of the least worst option.
I’d like to think that after nigh-on 20 years of our main political parties trying to appeal to our pockets that they may now preach to our sense of fair play. That means equality of opportunity for young people going to university, and the millionaires being made to share a little more of their good fortune.
Yes, good old-fashioned redistribution of wealth.
The Labour party may have elected the wrong Miliband, but if Ed is speaking that kind of language, he’s got my vote back.
News agenda’s got a bit more bite than usual
TIME was that our idea of Russian womanhood was a steroid-enhanced shot-putter with the physique of a plucked bear.
Now, hot on the heels of glamorous Russian spy Anna Chapman, we get another suspected spook from behind the former Iron Curtain in the enticing shape of Katia Zatuliveter.
It’s all gone a little bit James Bond. In fact, while we’re finding spurious movie allusions in the news agenda, isn’t all this pre-festive snow-related travel chaos straight out of Planes, Trains and Automobiles?
And, what with officials encouraging holidaymakers back into the sea only to see one of them become shark food, isn’t Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt shaping up as the new Amity Island of Jaws fame?
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"we're gonna need a bigger protest"...?
"Sir Philip insists his wife is not a tax exile, and that he is a UK taxpayer.
Whatever the detail, this is a demonstration about wanting a fairer society"
You know, theres no rule against you doing it either
There is that many different type of protester and they all have their own individual agenda. You could class it as selfish, in other words I cant be bothered about about fairness for the deprived pensioner or workers rights because I am only interested in my tuition fees. Maybe it's about time they all joined as one and all thought together against all the wrongs. There has to be a solution where every nation is at ease with each other and we can cut back on the war machine (toy factory for devilment). There is people who know how to look in the mirror and there are people who cant and it's the ones in office around the would who can't that should be booted. The world wide neurosis could be cured.
These unenlightened people who hold devilment in esteem is a figment of their imagination and their illness. They search each other out with the mission to take control. They are ill. Devilment isn't in everyone and those that have it have an illness. The problem gets worse when they believe their own hype. Anyone that takes the side of devilment is twisted.
A bit of thread but do you think that these private all boys schools where they live in for most of the year are healthy for them in the long run especially if when they do go home for breaks and their parents aren't really interested in them?. There is a certain social interaction that is missing in their lives. Maybe they should ban living-in and if the parents can't be doing with them then they should foster them out to caring foster people who can show them some light that they may be missing. They go to the same schools but at least they go home to some normality. Many appear in many ways to be bred for a certain purpose with the true values missing. I believe you can still have what you want without cracking the whip.
How, exactly, is taking the fruits of others for yourself 'fair'?
Tell me, when you get burgled do you simply see it as redistribution of your earnings to someone on a much lower level of income? Or do you think, 'I worked for that!'
It always amazes me that some people define fair as something they'd cry foul over if it happened to them. Perhaps it's time we started to apply a 50% tax to lottery winnings over £150,000 - so they can 'share their good fortune with others' - I'd love to see how many volte faces I'd see then.
As for tuition fees, as I've stated before - we've increased the number of student enormously. We either have less people going to Uni (where we can then afford grants again) or they pay.
'No, this uprising is about fairness and about principle: the principle that one generation which had free university education and thus equality of opportunity, should not deprive the next generation of those same things.'
There may well have been a free university education and an equality of opportunity but that opportunity was limited by fewer university places being available and a selection system which favoured those with the highest academic achievements.
In 1978, it was about one in ten of 18 year olds who continued into a university education. Now, that figure is between 40 and 50%. The state has continued to fund the growth of universities and propgate the attitude that a university education should be the aim of every parent for their child. So much so that many parents and children believe that a university education is their right rather than just an option for those with the highest academic ability.
We have moved from a system in which the limiting factor was the number of university places funded by the state and filled by those with the highest academic abilities to a system where there are four times the number of places available and those places will be filled by students who have been persuaded that saddling themselves at an early age with a huge debt is nothing to worry about.
If the state, and thus the taxpayer, is being asked to fund higher education, then the taxpayer is entitled to ask what benefits arise from providing such funding. I fail to understand why the country needs so many graduates and where all those jobs that are too difficult for anyone without a degree to do.
If fewer university places were available and selection to these places was according to academic ability, perhaps then we could move back to a system of free higher education for all. It won't happen though: as a country, we've lost the mindset that recognises that we all excel in different skills, so now, the expectation of a university education prevails. We're all too busy concerning ourselves with the lives of others and what we consider as 'fair' and 'our right' than doing the best things for ourselves according to our circumstances. In 1978, most of us didn't go to university - it was no calamity.